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No. 5 Women's Tennis Falls 4-0 to Florida in NCAA Quarterfinals
May 20, 2006
PALO ALTO, Calif. - For the second-straight year, rival Florida has eliminated Baylor's women's tennis team from the NCAA tournament. Early Saturday morning, about 2:25 a.m. CDT, No. 4 Florida clinched the 4-0 win after sealing the doubles point and first three singles points. Baylor's advancement to the tournament's quarterfinals this season is the farthest a team has gone in the program's history. The Bears' overall record this spring is a program-best 28-4, losing the four matches to top 15 teams. Rainfall Friday afternoon forced the match to temporarily be moved to indoor courts in San Francisco and the start time was pushed back three hours. Before either team has left to travel north, the matches were again rescheduled and were to take place on the original outdoor courts on Stanford's campus with a start time predicted for around 11:15 p.m. CDT, over three hours past the original time. In doubles the Bears led on all three courts at one point before falling behind on one and two. Daniela Covello and Zuzana Cerna were the first to be defeated as No. 25 Whitney Benik and Alexis Gordon posted an 8-6 victory. Zuzana Zemenova and Zuzana Krchnakova had taken the lead in their match 6-5 against Keri Robison and Nina Suvak but Florida's Lolita Frangulyan and Diana Srebrovic bested Klara Zrustova and Iva Mihaylova 8-4 on court two. Florida earned the doubles point and the momentum rolled into its singles play.
The six singles matches told a different story from how Baylor had performed all year. In fact, the Bears did not win a single first set on all six courts. Before Baylor could regain enough control to earn a point, No. 14 Gordon posted a 6-3, 6-0 upset over No. 6 Zemenova on court one. A domino effect then followed as Florida quickly picked up the two final points to clinch the match. Mihaylova was defeated 6-3, 6-1 on court five by Nina Suvak and moments later Krchnakova was handed a 6-2, 6-4 loss by Alex Liles. Though the finals points were tallied for Florida, Baylor's No. 16 Cerna, Covello, and Zrustova were all building strong comebacks against their opponents on courts two, three, and four when the match was retired. "Florida is a top team and they were the better team today. Unfortunately we couldn't come out on top in enough singles points or fight back enough from falling behind," said head coach Joey Scrivano. Scrivano has led the Bears to three post-reason runs, 2003, 2005, and 2006. On the way to the quarterfinals, Baylor defeated Texas Southern and #32 Texas A&M in the first and second rounds and then beat #12 Vanderbilt on Thursday in the round of 16. Florida, who defeated Baylor in the 2005 round of 16, will play No. 1 Stanford at noon on Sunday, May 21. #4 Florida, 4 def. #5 Baylor, 0 Singles Doubles |
